How Derrick Rose's Jersey Helped Shape Brooklyn Nets Uniform Design

According to Nets Daily, Brooklyn Nets vice president Fred Mangione told the Sports Business Journal that the team settled on the color scheme and jersey they did courtesy of the Chicago Bulls' superstar:

The Nets considered a red-white-and-blue mark tied to their old ABA days with Julius Erving. They also looked at black and gold, colors symbolizing the borough of Brooklyn, but the scheme looked too much like the Pittsburgh Steelers, Mangione said. They settled on black as a primary color after finding out a nontraditional black jersey for Chicago Bulls star Derrick Rose outsold a regular home jersey for Miami Heat star LeBron James, he said.

Upon finding out that a black Derrick Rose jersey outsold a LeBron James home jersey, black was the obvious choice. The rest is history, though this is news to us.

Shaping the way an entire organization markets their team is the ultimate tip of the hat. Deron Williams and company are sporting the colors they are thanks to Rose and, of course, the fans who paid top dollar for those "nontraditional" jerseys of his.

For any and all wondering if serving as the Nets' muse would be a good selling point, Rose is slated to become a free agent in 2017, which is incidentally the next time Brooklyn will have cap space (kidding, they'll have cap in 2016).

There's no other way to describe this than super cool. Market research is a beautiful thing (useful too), and it's becoming move obvious than ever how much of an effect the players have on every aspect of the NBA's future.

Just think, the Nets could have been adorning themselves in red, white and blue had they not been inspired by Rose; they would have been the American flag of NBA franchises.

Or worse, they could have looked like the NBA's version of the Steelers. Depending on what shade of gold they used, they could have resembled the New Orleans Saints.

In that case, Rose saved Brooklyn from a mistake, because the Nets' jerseys are perhaps the most stylish in the NBA. All of Brooklyn owes him a "thank you."

For Rose, the Bulls and their fans, however, this is more of a bittersweet finding.

To know your franchise superstar holds enough clout to influence the fashion blueprint of another franchise is both humbling and satisfying. But to know the Nets saw more of Rose in their jerseys this season than the Bulls in theirs is not quite as humbling or satisfying.